


this is heaven, what I truly want (it's innocence lost)

by doriangrays (orphan_account)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Altar Sex, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Biblical References, Church Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Semi-Public Sex, Theology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 06:33:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18805678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/doriangrays
Summary: Yuta will forget to recall that Satan was the most beautiful of all God's angels.





	this is heaven, what I truly want (it's innocence lost)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on _Éloa, ou la sœr des anges_
> 
> Title from [ Gods and Monsters](https://youtu.be/Rzkt9t_e75o)
> 
> I would like to iterate that this is a work of fiction and it was not my intention to offend anyone with religious beliefs through this work.

He was borne of a tear shed by God, the only tear that had ever flowed through heaven, when he looked down upon the world on the seventh day and beheld the beauty of his own creation. That much was known; he was the brother of the archangels, complete with the wings of a dove and a countenance set in marble that exuded etherality in its every facet. Gabriel the emissary was the one who first found him, a speck of light forming within a cloud, the shape of it roiling and shifting and glowing brighter and brighter with each breath. He gathered his brothers to watch as the cumulus birthed from in its womb a bare golden-haired youth, eyes wide as he beheld the ranks that congregated to witness him.

 

They received him into their files gently, and Raphael the healer had cast over his form a white robe that he clutched around himself, shining Michael coronating him with a gilded hoop. And when they had waited for a name to christen this young angel, one by heaven rom the highest tiers of the seraphim to the four-faced cherubim and archangels with their blazing swords, began to murmur the name Yuta, their chorus swelling like an ocean tide, and the young angel had responded to them and exclaimed, “I am he!”

 

===

 

Angels were made to love God in the adoring way a young child is meant to love their father; innocent, sure he could do no wrong.

 

Angels were made to love humanity in the way a lover does to their beloved; gently, tenderly, generously, but keenly aware of their differences and flaws alike.

 

They were made to love God and his decree more than they loved humanity. For who would choose their beloved over the father who made them? Prometheus was chained to a mountain, eagles pecking out his liver for a thousand years for making such a mistake. The Nephilim were drowned for being the proof of such a folly of passion and their fathers and mothers who dwelled in heaven were cast out, halos wrenched off of their foreheads and their beautiful wings hacked off their back into ugly stumps.

 

Too much love blinded one to the truth, or so the holy hosts proclaimed, that God was the only righteous one amongst them all. Loving was not frowned on-- so long as they loved God more than they loved each other or a human or their own self.

 

As for Lucifer, God’s own lieutenant and Morning-Star, the pride and joy of all he commanded, he loved God like an adult loved their aging parent, disagreeing and disapproving, and soon his scores and scores of followers questioned him and disagreed like an adolescent with their father. They squabbled, and heaven was rift into two. God cast them all down, and upon the former favorite of all his children he conveyed the name Satan, the adversary.

 

Yuta had seen it all happen from a distance, in his midway between heaven and mortals as an angel. He had witnessed the call to arms and the bellowing of Michael, the favorite of his brothers, as he bore his blade of heavenly fire against the interloper, the clashing of the duel ringing out in rhythm to the chanting of the seraphim as they blazed through the battlefield. He had raised his dagger against the rebel angels and watched as their wings melted back into their bodies as his knife cut through their sternum, faces turning ashen as they plummeted down through the clouds.

 

The war continued on for three days and three nights, and finally, it ended with a duel between Lucifer and Michael. Michael was force and rage and Lucifer as lithe as a shadow, but God put his might behind the archangel till the usurper was disarmed. Then they were all gathered to witness this fall and Yuta stood with the lower ranks of angels that guarded humans and each of their secrets as Michael dragged before God's throne a shackled figure with wings of pure light.

 

The seraphim's litany grew higher and higher as the prisoner was brought forth till they sounded like a chorus of screams.

 

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!”

 

The prisoner takes no note of them. No chains could subdue him; he wore the dimness of his forehead where once had rested a halo the same way a human monarch would wear a crown, back straight and gazing directly at the light that was God's presence.

 

Yuta marvelled at such a thing. Here was a traitor, who bore neither humility nor remorse for his actions. The half-empty congregation of heaven murmurs around him, in awe at this defeated general who despite it all remained uncowed even by the glory of their Creator Himself.

 

Michael's eyes were shut as he tilted his head up, letting the words of God wash over his face.

 

“Lucifer. Light bringer, Morning Star,” he speaks, and though the words came from Michael's mouth, they were not Michael's own, the voice infinitely older, all the ages and millennia since the universe's creation within them. “You have betrayed the father who loves you. For your sin, you will be cast from our ranks and from Heaven. No more shall you know the love of God, and in all your days you will seek to oppose him, and your name will be Satan, for you will be his adversary.”

 

There is a numb silence, the words echoing and rolling over the field of clouds, and at last, Michael, judge and jury and executioner, hefts his greatsword above his head, and brings it down across Lucifer's back. With a crack like the rolling of thunder, the inner glow of the wings are extinguished, and they roll to the ground, scarlet ichor spurting from them as they flutter uselessly in a flurry of feathers before stiffening.

 

Raphael and Gabriel emerge from the throng to gather up the severed wings, and Uriel to grasp Lucifer's left arm as Michael sheathed his still-bloody sword and lifted Satan by his right.

 

Yuta watches as they yank him to his feet, and swallows back a gasp as they turn him for all to see; the consequence of disobeying their father and God made corporeal. But even though his body is broken, Lucifer is effused by unrepentant pride and it's all too easy to see his beauty. Yuta thinks to himself for a moment that if he looked like that, he might have fallen prey to similar arrogance before he ducks his head down, ashamed at the thought.

 

Lucifer's eyes flash through the crowd, and rage smoulders in their unknown depths even as his face portrays a disdainful serenity. They hurl him off the cloud so hard his figure disappears within seconds, for it is hard for an angel so beloved of God to leave no matter the way God exiles him. He plummets silently, impassively, and unapologetic to the last.

 

The seraphim's chorus rises to a shriek.

 

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!”

 

===

 

Beauty is good, for God was beautiful, his brothers and sisters were beautiful, and the view of Earth from Heaven was as well. That was what Yuta believed in, as surely as the wind below his wings when he flew.

 

He has since forgotten the three days in heaven when angels fought angels and the seraphim were drowned out by the cries of a battlefield. He has forgotten how beautiful Satan was even when they had done all they could to humble him. He forgets the slender eyes and full lips and the crown of midnight colored hair.

 

He only remembers the way the wings flopped from the fallen angel's back as the blade sliced through through and the ugly red stumps from which they once protruded; resolution painted clear on both Michael and bright Uriel's faces.

 

He will come to misremember over time the way Satan's face twisted into a sneer and the skin of a serpent that stretched taut over a cruel face. He will forget to recall that Satan was the most beautiful of all God's angels.

 

===

 

He meets the stranger in the Santa Maria Della Vittoria, a church in Rome.

 

Gabriel wished to walk with the humans again and Michael could do little to deny him. They descend, three of them, and Michael leaves with Gabriel to journey south to Jerusalem, to venerate the prophets and the holier men and women through which they once manifested before. Yuta travels north to marvel at the cathedrals in Italy onto which the imagined approximations of him and his brothers are painted.

 

No one takes any notice of this young tourist who stands before the pointed cathedrals and then tilts his head up, up, up, heavenwards, past the crosses that adorned their roofs to the very sun itself, and then smiles. Surely, no one knows he is one of God’s angels himself, come down to see and walk amongst them with his halo and wings concealed.

 

He's venturing through Rome after having attended a Sunday service, and briefly mused over how humans worshipped God the same way that angels did-- they call him Father, too, and supplicate him with the hopes and expectations that he would possess the omnipotence or omnibenevolence to grant them a path. It is sad, and curious, and almost a tender scene for him to behold, for some days, despite having fully witnessed God in his glory, Yuta still does not believe any of what they say he is, and makes himself almost sick with shame hours later for thinking so. Yet these humans are content to build their cathedrals and mosques and synagogues and temples in hopes of speaking to a God they have never seen.

 

Yuta is stopping briefly, wandering the pews of the church before he sees him surveying an alcove of the cathedral.

 

He doesn't know it's him exactly at that moment in time, just sees the slender eyes with their sharp edges and the fullness of the pink lips and the midnight dark hair and merely thinks to himself how much of a pity it is that heaven doesn't possess such beauty within its ranks.

 

Yuta swallows. There’s a sugar-bitter taste on his tongue that rises up when he glances over at the man, side profile uptilted to survey the subtle marble folds of a sculpture. The lighting of the display and shadow combine to cast a subtle chiaroscuro over his features.

 

“Gian Lorenzo Bernini,” says the stranger, who peers to his left and over his shoulder, directly at Yuta. Lips part and then lift up into a smile, and the man turns his head again, resuming his meticulous appraisal of the statue.

 

 _Look at me_ , Yuta thinks towards him, unabashed in his fascination. The man's beauty is almost celestial in nature, features so perfectly formed he might as well been an angel himself. He’s tall and lithe, all graceful lines. The sunlight casts a dust of copper over his dark lashes, lending a dewlike glow to full lips.

 

Of his own volition, he's gathering his courage, walking over to the display and his voice stuttering out a quiet, “Hello…”

 

The man looks over at him and quirks a brow as if waiting for him to finish his sentence, his cool dismissal burning Yuta's cheeks.

 

“I--” he finds himself unable to say anything, caught up in the way the man's plum dark eyes flash golden as he tilted his head.

 

He flashes a smile. “I know. Don’t worry.”

 

 _What do you know?_ Yuta thinks to himself. “All-- right,” he croaks out loud instead, folding his hands behind his back as he copies the other’s pose, looking up at the statue. Why shouldn't Yuta worry? Nervously-- why was he nervous?-- he wets the corner of his lip.

 

“The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa,” the man says, nodding to the stone nun with her voluminous robes, clutching at her sternum.

 

Yuta nods, following the lines of carved fabric up to the face. Something about the composition of the piece, sainted nun splayed on her back and her head arched upwards infused the display with a tinge of grotesque carnality, the effect heightening as the man steps back and then to the side, aligning his shoulder to Yuta's back, his lips a mere foot away from his ear.

 

“I saw in the angel's hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire,” he murmurs, and the centimeter of space between where their bodies would have touched seems to disappear as Yuta feels the words flow through him.

 

“He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God,” he continues, voice almost a sigh.

 

Yuta can feel his breath on his neck, the hairs on it standing straight as he shivers.

 

“The pain was so great, that it made me moan,” he had murmured, voice breathy and dark. “And yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it.”

 

He feels the man shift behind him, and Yuta watches as he shuts his eyes, tilting up his head and exhaling in a forceful sigh that sounded more like a moan. His expression mirrors that of the sculpture's and in flesh itself, it looks far more obscene. It is the reality of the moment, the trace of moisture on the corner of his lip, the way his chest heaves, the way his eyelashes cast a lacy shadow over his cheeks. Then he smirks and continues his recitation.

 

“It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.” His words echo through the aisle with a ring.

 

“Amen,” Yuta mutters over the beating of his heart in his ears and the warmth of the man’s body he feels behind him. “Amen.”

 

“You're not from around here, are you?” The man asks suddenly, peering at him inquisitively as he sucks his lower lip into his mouth before releasing it with an almost audible pop.

 

He shakes his head. “No.”

 

“Me neither, even though I know this place quite well.”

 

“I'm Yuta,” says the angel politely.

 

“A lovely name for a lovely man,” says the other.

 

“Who are you?”

 

“I'm a wanderer. My name is Sicheng.”

 

===

 

They walk six days across Rome and every gallery and monument there was to behold, and Sicheng guides Yuta so gently through it, the sensuality of their first meeting transforming into a reticent shyness as if Sicheng had overnight deemed himself unworthy or else was frightened of being burnt, that Yuta calls his name several times, trying to gather up the courage to ask if Sicheng knew the truth of him before he stops himself and smiles at the other instead.

 

Sicheng never smiles back, but he glows instead-- the corners of his lips soften and his eyes shine.

 

They amble through the halls of the Galleria Borghese, more ornate than anything Heaven had ever created with its statue of the maiden carried off to the depths of hell, and Yuta learns from him of the pagans who worshipped the skies and the earth and the rain as gods in their own right. Of the way even in the holiest building as anointed by humans, sin still permeated its very foundation stones.

 

They toss copper pennies into the Trevi Fountain on their sixth day, and when Yuta asks Sicheng what he wished for, the other says, “You.”

 

Yuta returns to Heaven with a racing heart, a sweetness blossoming in the back of his throat as heady as a bouquet of daphne and fennel, and a promise to see him again soon. _Come to me again in a year. I will wait for you in Liège_.

 

His days become as slow as the flow of molasses but as quick as a deluge all at once; Sicheng's absence makes the hours seem long, yet the anticipation of meeting him again drives the clock through its course in double-time.

 

“Brother,” ventures Raphael. “You seem happier of late since your sojourn to Earth with Gabriel and Michael.”

 

“Yes,” Yuta nods distractedly. “Earth is a wonderful place.”

 

Raphael's eyes curve into crescents and his teeth glint through as luminous as his silver hair. “What's his name?”

 

“Who says there is someone?” Yuta retorts.

 

Raphael barks out a laugh in response. “Very well. You need not tell me his name, but at least speak to me of him.”

 

“His eyes shine when he's happy,” Yuta divulges in a secret whisper. “He doesn't smile much, but he's still so beautiful.”

 

“As beautiful as Brother Gabriel?” Raphael teases.

 

“To me, he's the most beautiful man to have existed,” Yuta replies. “He is the very definition of sublime, no disrespect meant to Gabriel, if you see him you would know at once, for he could have been an angel with his beauty.”

 

Raphael smiles and nods and pats Yuta on the back of his head like an indulgent brother. But his words speak differently-- “Be careful, Yuta. Unlike Heaven, Earth is not free of sin and our brothers who preceded us have fallen prey to it before.”

 

===

 

Sicheng asks to meet him in Liège, a municipality in Belgium that was famed for being the site of battles and last stands throughout human history, ostensibly at first to defend whatever skewed ideas they had of God, and then later to defend whatever gods they replaced the original with. There is something there that he wants to show him.

 

They walk along the Batte, the Sunday market, river twinkling merrily in the background as Sicheng ambles ahead, Yuta following after. Around them, the city goes about its day, vendors calling out their wares and setting up their stalls. It's so much color, earthy hues and jewel tones combining into a vivid explosion that overwhelms him. He has to stop dead in midst of the cobblestone sidewalk, and turns slowly in a perfect revolution, his eyes oversaturated with all the colors he could have never found a match for in all of the pastel palettes of heaven.

 

When he turns back forwards to face Sicheng, there's a look of indulgent bemusement written across his handsome features. The man steps closer to him and tosses an orb up into the air. When it lands back in his palm, he holds it up for Yuta to see.

 

It's an apple, the scarlet of blood streaked through with threads of gold and an emerald-green leaf crown.

 

There’s a heady sort of sweetness that fills his nose as Sicheng lifts it up, pressing it just barely to his lips. Suddenly bold, Yuta brings a hand up to encircle Sicheng's wrist, eyes peering up at the taller man. The look in his eyes can only be described as that of a wildfire, hungry and unrestrained and bright for something Yuta cannot find within himself to comprehend. Sicheng parts his mouth and Yuta mirrors him, letting the smooth skin of the apple touch the inside of his lips, pressing against the edge of his teeth.

 

He swirls his tongue over the puncture as the skin gives under his teeth and lets the juice fill his mouth, biting down into the flesh. Spit and nectar pools in the bite mark he leaves when he pulls away, the piece of apple softening on his tongue.

 

Sicheng lowers his arm, Yuta's hand still clutching to his wrist, and then pulls him closer, the width of the apple larger than the distance between them now.

 

Bringing his free hand to Yuta's jaw, Sicheng strokes it till Yuta opens his mouth for him again, and then kisses him, tongue coaxing out the piece of apple as he does so, juice and spit smearing over their lips. Sicheng kisses with tongue and teeth and lip as if he means to devour Yuta whole, fingers digging so hard into the side of Yuta's neck that his breath catches.

 

Yuta runs his tongue over his lip when Sicheng pulls away, feeling the ichor well under his tongue in pinpricks. There's streaks of his blood painting Sicheng's lips cherry-red. The other man shuts his eyes and his tongue swipes over his lips, upper and then lower, smiling all the while as if he relishes the taste in his mouth, blood and fruit intermingling.

 

Yuta doesn't know what possesses him to clench tight to Sicheng's wrist and and to be the one who leans forwards this time, chasing his lips inelegantly but nonetheless managing to reach his mark, tangling his tongue with Sicheng's. He lets the other seize control again, stroking his jaw open and pushing the bite of apple back into his mouth, watching as he swallows before pulling his lower lip between his teeth, suckling on the wound as if the blood that pooled from it was mother's milk.

 

Yuta's head whirls, skin burning. Sicheng's touch oversaturates his world, and despite the voice in his head warning him that angels weren't meant to live in any color but rocaille pastels, he grips on tight to the other's wrist, feeling the heat spread from the point of contact up his arm and into his chest with a shudder.

 

Sicheng brings the apple up to his lips again. Yuta bites down.

 

===

 

The cathedral appears in the distance when Yuta finishes his last bit of apple, letting the core drop to the grass beneath their feet as he clutches onto Sicheng with fingers sticky with juice, pressing the bite into his mouth with a kiss.

 

Despite the time being Sunday afternoon, the church is deserted when they arrive, and Sicheng marches up the front steps and then pushes open the doors, gesturing at Yuta. “Come in,” he waves.

 

Yuta enters the church, and lets the door shut behind him with an audible click, the sound harmonizing with the beats of his own pulse.

 

Beyond that, the only noises were that of his own breathing and the tapping of his shoes against the floor as he strides across the back of the nave, Sicheng in front of him, pacing in a graceful line backwards, hand extended towards him but out of Yuta’s grasp. He leads them down the pathway, towards a trio of marble Saints, their footsteps echoing under the vaulted roof of painted stone.

 

But instead of stopping in front of them, Sicheng circles around their figures. The beatific stone eyes gently gaze down at the two of them as he leads Yuta around to the back of the pulpit, where yet another sculpture is displayed.

 

Yuta scarcely has time to look at the statue before he is pushed up against the railing of the pulpit as Sicheng attacks his lips once more, one hand coming to grip the back of his neck and another on his hip. Yuta responds in kind, licking into his mouth and trying to anchor himself by clutching at the fabric of Sicheng’s turtleneck, pulling him as close as he humanly could.

 

It’s all moving too fast; Yuta knows this is how humans show their love and desire towards one another, but as an angel, he’d never done so before. He thinks of the chaste kisses Raphael presses to Gabriel’s high forehead and the way they call it _agape_ , the holy love of angels and of God.

 

That was a pure, innocent affection.

 

This is anything but. This is as far removed from it as a common sinner was from heaven, a spark igniting in his abdomen as Sicheng runs his hands along the line of his thighs, hitching up the shirt he wore and pressing burning hands to his skin underneath. The merest brush of his thumb against the inner curve of his waist has Yuta jolting against the bannister, a whimper tearing itself from his throat, and Sicheng releases his lips from Yuta’s finally and pulls away, releasing Yuta at last from the press of the barrier against his back.

 

With a fluid motion, Sicheng has Yuta pressed down on his knees in front of the pulpit as he climbs into lap of the winged statue, his legs settling on either side of its thigh. Fingers running through the grooves of the statue’s hair, he presses his forehead against the marble brow and then tilts his head, leaning in.

 

Yuta is too far into unfamiliar territory, too far from the holiness he is used to despite the stone floor of a church digging itself into his knees. He should have gone moments after Sicheng first pressed their lips together, but the man rivets him far too much with his hungry eyes, and he stays on his knees like a supplicant before an altar, if said altar were to be the lascivious display before him. Groaning, he wraps his arms around himself to replace the heat that Sicheng took away as he beholds how Sicheng’s teeth clack against the parted stone lips as if he could will the unyielding stone into hot skin beneath his fingertips The statue was still under the refracted rainbows of afternoon light, Sicheng’s tongue dragging across the dip of the statue’s parted mouth before pressing into seam, spit welling into the space between their lips.

 

The burning in Yuta’s gut intensified as he pitched forward on his knees, squeezing his thighs together in an effort to stave off the sensation of being a coil wound tight, gnawing at his lower lip. It proves futile when Sicheng chokes out a sigh of, “Yuta--,” drawing away from the statue’s mouth, both of their lips slick with his spit, panting as he laid his head against the hard shoulder, exhaling out a slow whine as he released his hold on the statue’s neck and let them idly caress the planes of the sculpture’s chest.

 

Yuta chokes on his own spit as he watches, hands roaming over his own body now, and he whines out, “Sicheng, please.”

 

“ _Yuta_ ,” the man merely sighed again as he reached up to cup the marble face and then leaned back in, mouth kissing up the dampness that trickled down the sides of the angel’s chin before his lips found their pace again.

 

Yuta’s hips were moving of their own accord, and he pressed his palm down against the tightness in the front of his pants for friction. He props himself up on one hand as he jolted at the relief, letting a particularly loud moan echo in the chapel without any heed to his audience of God and Sicheng and the statues and whatever unfortunate passerby might chance upon them.

 

It’s that sound which finally makes Sicheng take pity on him, and he unseats himself from the statue, closing his fingers around Yuta’s throat and dragging him into a standing position, bruising his lips with another kiss and pulling him forwards. He maneuvers them around, hands on his shoulders, and Yuta feels the touch-warmed marble under his shoulders as Sicheng slips his hands under the waistband of his pants, fingers brushing against the tops of his thighs but never once touching his arousal.

 

He tilts his head back, moaning. “Sicheng--” he gasps when the other finally abandons his lips and scrapes his teeth over Yuta's neck. It's slick and sharp, spit and tongue and teeth painting bruises down the side of his pulse point, and Sicheng mouths briefly at the collar of his shirt before he pulls away, tugging insistently at the hem. Yuta gets the message and pulls the top off, leaving it abandoned somewhere on the church floor before Sicheng reattaches to his clavicle. He kisses a line down his chest, each new kiss and bite making the fire burn hotter within his chest, his legs shakier and moans more unrestrained.

 

His hands scrabble for purchase on the marble as Sicheng slides into a kneeling position before him and undoes his pants, Yuta barely able to lift his hips for Sicheng as he coaxes them off. Sicheng’s gaze remains as shameless as ever despite their lewd position, and he doesn’t waver as he takes Yuta into his mouth.

 

Yuta convulses, knocking his head against the shoulder of the statue in the process, and though he progressively feels more lightheaded and dizzy as the seconds tick by, he knows it’s not the impact so much as it’s the feeling of Sicheng’s mouth on his cock, stern hands anchoring his hips into place. Someone is moaning Sicheng’s name over and over again in a high pitched voice, and Yuta eventually realizes it’s him, as fervent as a seraph before God’s throne. In the moments before he comes, when Sicheng pulls away and watches him with an intent gaze, Yuta gasps out, “ _Oh God_ ,” and then he’s letting go, everything fading out till only the feeling of Sicheng’s hands on his thighs and his body pressed up against Yuta’s remains.

 

Sicheng kisses him through his high, a tamer press against his lips this time instead of the viciousness that had characterized him before, swallowing up his cry and letting him sob out the rest of his climax till he finally calms down. His head falls to Sicheng’s shoulder, and he heaves out a heavy breath, spent. In the sudden silence of the cathedral, he hears his own heart pounding in his ears and the evenness of Sicheng’s breathing. His thighs are sticky with his seed, but he has no energy to clean himself up, leaning his weight on Sicheng and his eyes fluttering closed. The other traces light circles over his thighs, and gathers up the come on his fingers before pressing them to Yuta's lips.

 

He opens his mouth and takes them in, letting the saline taste of himself rest on his tongue, feeling the pressure of Sicheng's fingers recede as he slowly withdrew them to the knuckle and then pushed them in again.

 

He does so for a few minutes, gently laving his tongue over the marks he's left on Yuta's shoulders and neck and chest and then he pulls his fingers back out fully and uses his other hand to hitch up Yuta's thigh, the tip of his finger descending to circle around his rim.

 

Yuta gasps against the Sicheng's shoulder, sound muffled in the fabric and leaving a damp spot where he accidentally bites down. Sicheng grunts, and then prods a single finger carefully into him. “Calm down.”

 

Yuta's not sure he can even form words now, merely exhaling shakily and letting out a soft whine as he clutches at Sicheng's shoulders, the taller man slowly stretching him apart with his fingers. “Please.”

 

Yuta watches the way Sicheng concentrates, backlit by stained glass and tongue darting out over his swollen lower lip as he watches his fingers thrust in and out slowly against Yuta's hole, leaning forward to lick at the curve of Yuta's upper lip again. He relaxes against Sicheng as he fingers him, two fingers going to three before he winces at the stretch.

 

Yuta flinches into the kiss at the way the intrusion suddenly feels sharp, and Sicheng pauses, leaving his fingers in Yuta before he pulls Yuta closer around him, gripping onto the flesh of his thigh. Yuta tightens his legs around Sicheng's waist, holding on tight to his shoulders as he lifts him from the lap of the statue he seated them on.

 

Yuta is the one who reconnects their lips together as Sicheng walks, preoccupying himself with the movements of his lips and the gentle and shallow thrust of Sicheng's fingers into him till he feels him stop, carefully setting him down on a surface before his body heat leaves him altogether.

 

He arches up and clenches around nothing, whining as he reaches for Sicheng, who circles around him. He props himself up on his elbows to watch Sicheng open a small cabinet built into an alcove of the wall, a flush of shame trickling through him at the realization that he is spread bare on the altar, paintings of his brothers triumphant adorning the triptych behind his head. It vanishes the next moment when Sicheng returns to his place in front of him, holding in his hand a silver vial. He lunges for him, nipping at his lips and covering Yuta's body with his own as he uncaps the bottle with steady hands. The scent of balsam and olive permeates Yuta's nostrils as Sicheng tilts a stream of oil down his fingers, and then pushes three fingers back into Yuta.

 

“Ah--” Yuta claws at Sicheng's shoulders, legs tightening around his waist and trying to pull him closer and deeper despite the way the fabric of the other man's clothing chafed at his bare skin. “More, more, please, Sicheng,” he gasps, head knocking back against the table, his own dick hardening against his thigh.

 

“You want more?” Sicheng asks him carefully, hooking his fingers up inside him. It grazes against his sweet spot and Yuta jolts against him, a whine coupled with desperate nodding of _yes, yes, yes_ , his response.

 

Sicheng pulls away from him briefly, fingers still pushing in and out of him, undoing his pants and sliding them down. His cock is flushed pink against his thigh, pale beads of precome smearing across the head of it as he strokes up and down his length.

 

Yuta reaches next to his head for the ampoule, sitting up and offering it to Sicheng, who guides his wrist to trickle the contents of the vial over his dick. He watches in vague fascination as the oil flows down Sicheng's cock, anointing it. He groans slightly at the sensation of emptiness as Sicheng slips his fingers out of him to run them down his own shaft, only for it to become a full-on cry as Sicheng pushes into him, pressing a kiss to the curve of his shoulder as Yuta squirms underneath, trying to adjust the stretch.

 

They stay like this, pressed together till Yuta shifts his hips up, trying to bring him deeper into him, and Sicheng digs his fingers into Yuta's hips and his teeth into Yuta's lips. He pulls his hips back before pushing in again, and Yuta lets out a thin moan as Sicheng gradually speeds up his pace, back sliding against the brocade altarcloth and holding on to Sicheng as tightly as he could. His lips latch onto the side of Sicheng's jaw and he kisses down the curve of his chin and up to his lips again, licking into his mouth, and Sicheng huffs out a short breath as Yuta clenches instinctively around him. He's burning up. Sicheng's too hot inside him, sending sparks through his limbs.

 

His voice climbs in pitch as the head of Sicheng's cock brushes against his prostate and he bites down on Sicheng's lip. The acrid taste of iron fills his mouth but somehow it's sweet to him the way that Sicheng's hips stutter and he lets out a dark groan into Yuta's mouth when the blood wells up from the bite. Sicheng's pace becomes more erratic, driving them both towards release, Yuta's arms around his shoulders slide up to clutch at his hair, prompting Sicheng to moan again, a ragged phrase that slurred into incoherency. “I’m yours,” he pants against Yuta’s lips. “Be mine, Yuta, you’re mine and mine alone.”

 

When Yuta starts to shudder under Sicheng, the other pulls away from his kisses, gripping onto his hips tight and eyes raking across his face as he jolted, coming with a scream that echoed off of the vaulted ceiling and a shudder across his abdomen. Sicheng thrusts harder, making him whine through his high before he breaks as well, the line of his neck arcing back and his face illuminated by the light of the rose window in something near religious ecstasy.

 

He moves in Yuta until he's absolutely spent, hands straying from his hips to dance across the planes of his chest, up his neck, and tangling into golden hair before he pulls out of him. Warmth trickles down Yuta's thighs when he clenches around the fresh emptiness, and Sicheng threads his fingers through his hair once more before kissing him. Worn out, Yuta hums lazily, eyes fluttering shut.

 

“Sicheng,” he sighs again. “I’ve never met someone like you before.”

 

The afternoon sun and the feeling of Sicheng’s body heat, radiating from where the other man leans above him, lull him into a sense of calm, and he reaches over to thread his fingers with Sicheng’s.

 

“If I had the choice, I think I’d want to stay with you. To be yours, like you said.”

 

The last thing he feels before letting sleep take hold of him are fingers brushing aside his hair and the press of a kiss on the crown of his nose.

 

===

 

He wakes bathed in blinding light, and the first thing he registers is the coolness of the air against his bare skin. Blinking out the sunspots in his eyes, he reaches to his left, but the white clouds beneath him bear no other occupant aside from himself.

 

Since when had he returned to heaven? Where was Sicheng?

 

He sits up to find himself as spotless and bare as the day he had been formed and brought into the ranks of heaven, and he shivers involuntarily, folding his wings around himself. The clouds shift around him, and through them emerges a glowing white figure with a shock of flame-red hair.

 

“Gabriel,” the name falls from his lips in the uptilted dialect of a query. “What is happening?”

 

The figure pauses next to him and then kneels down. “Yuta,” Gabriel finally meets his eyes, and the pity on his beautiful face washes cold all down his spine. “Have you any idea of what you have done?”

 

“Gabriel, what do you mean?” Yuta reaches for the other’s hands, but he idly drifts them away from his touch. “Brother?”

 

“You have betrayed our ranks,” Gabriel recounted, “With our greatest adversary.”

 

He automatically shakes his head rapidly, trying to meet his eyes even as Gabriel stared ahead at the ever-shifting columns of clouds. “Brother, I have done no such thing…” How could he? He loved heaven and God and all his brethren. “Gabriel, brother, please believe me.”

 

“Michael will come to us bearing Father’s will soon,” he merely says, almost as impassively as if discussing the weather. “You have fallen into a pit of ink, and the entire sea has too few drops to wash you clean again. Angels were not made to sin, Yuta, yet sin you did.”

 

Within his head, the sounds of the seraphim are amplified tenfold into a shrieking cacophony, no longer wonderful to behold. _Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!_ Yuta clenches his fists in his lap, feeling his voice tremble. “I have seen you a thousand times with Michael and yet no one says the two of you are sinners.”

 

Gabriel’s sharp jaw winds tight, even as his eyes grow brighter in that way he appeared to humans-- soft and gentle, the embodiment of God’s love.

 

“How could loving be a sin?” Yuta demanded, feeling his voice peak and break. “Am I to be punished for loving a human? Were we not meant to love humanity?”

 

“Love humanity, yes, love individual humans, no.” Gabriel shakes his head. “That is the task of guardian angels, to watch over and cherish those to whom they are tied. We are of higher rank. But does it matter whether or not you were made to love a human?”

 

Yuta opens his mouth to ask further, but then comes another voice, far harder than Gabriel’s own. “My Gabriel is far too lenient with you,” says Michael, bright sword held in his hand as he approaches them from the clouds. “You did not love, you lusted.”

 

There is no forgiveness, no gentleness in his gaze as it were times before, when Yuta was still younger and occupied with more petty mischiefs. This was the Michael who was God’s sword and fury the same way Gabriel was God’s tenderness, wearing a glare on his brow that entwined with his holy halo. Despite himself Yuta trembles, and Gabriel moves to wrap his arms around Yuta’s shoulders. “Michael, I was not tempted by the man’s flesh,” he says rapidly over Gabriel’s shoulder as the archangel approaches. “Brother, he was beautiful and I loved his beauty far more than I loved his touch.” Despite the way Gabriel anchors him in place in an embrace, he only feels the chill. Yuta wonders if heaven was ever this cold to him before, and looks up into Michael’s eyes, pleading.

 

There is a glimmer of something sad that Yuta cannot quantify in Michael’s eyes, a flicker of reprieve in the way his features soften to look like the brother Yuta had once, and he reaches down, as if to stroke his hand through Yuta’s hair before his mouth hardens.

 

Yuta screams as a sensation he can only compare to intense burning shoots through his head, and he lurches forward, Gabriel wrenching his body upright again. He’s never felt anything like this before, head swimming and vision fading around the corners till it becomes black. All he can experience anymore is the sensation of knives running along the inside of his cranium, and the only way he’s able to articulate anything close to what it feels like is to wear his throat out with his cry of agony.

 

Eventually, it subsides just enough (or maybe he’s just become familiar enough to the sensation) for him try to open his eyes again to the white robe over Gabriel’s shoulder and wisps of red hair, Michael standing in front of him with a glowing round in one hand, and his blade in another.

 

Instinctively, Yuta realizes what has happened. His halo was torn from his forehead, and a throbbing rears back its head and roared throughout his body from the epicenter of his temples in response to its loss.

 

“Stop,” he manages to croak out, and he feels Gabriel’s fingers flex over his shoulder blades, a brief flutter of hesitation or regret, or both. “Stop, please.”

 

He pitches forwards onto his elbows and knees, trying uselessly to propel himself away with his wings. It’s no use-- without a halo, without his divinity, the wings upon his back are dead weights he cannot lift.

 

“Please,” he sobs again, uselessly struggling as Michael lifts one of his wings up as if it was mere gossamer. “Please, I loved him…”

 

Yuta's protests turn into a scream as he feels the cold and unforgiving press of the blade into the muscle of his limb.

 

“No, no, no, don't clip my wings!” he shrieked on deaf ears.

 

Gabriel in front of him steadies his figure, not to comfort him, he realizes now with a shudder, but to ensure Michael had an easier time of cutting off his wings. Behind him the archangel slices into the flesh, and Yuta screams again, tries to crawl away to no avail, held in place by Gabriel.

 

The pain burns as much as the removal of his halo had, and Yuta realizes with a start that salty and bitter dampness is running down his face. “Stop it, please,” he sobs. “I loved him, don't you understand?”

 

“If you loved him, then it would have been better that you never know love at all then,” mutters Gabriel as the first of Yuta's wings thumps to the floor, severed from his body. Yuta slumps over heavily on his right side now, weighed down by the solitary wing and the way the torture and defeat hit him all at once in a wave that crushes him to the floor almost as heavily as if it were a physical thing.

 

“Well I did, I loved him and I've never met anyone like him before,” Yuta cries in a ragged voice, clenching his fingers in a fist as Michael begins to cut into his other wing. “He was beautiful and his name was Sicheng.”

 

Michael saws at the wing viciously.

 

“He had eyes like amber in the sunlight.”

 

Gabriel's hands are soft with pity on his back in juxtaposition to Michael’s unyielding grasp.

 

“And they shined when he was happy.”

 

The wing falls to the ground with a thud of resounding finality. Yuta, profaned and made into lesser than he was born, weeps against his knees, his sobs guttural, more like that of a wounded animal than an angel. Michael's blade rasps as it slides back into its scabbard.

 

“Father,” Yuta whispers, forehead pressed to the ground to brace himself against the pain. “Would you not forgive my sin of loving him?”

 

Hands reach under his arms to lift him up, and Yuta feels himself being pulled to a kneeling position once more as Gabriel and Michael grasp at his shoulders.

 

His physical descent is as full of fury and fear as his divine one. Yuta's scream dies on the wind as he is pushed off of the cloud, air rushing up around him.

 

The sounds of a seraphim fade out. _Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory…_

 

“Love can't save you, Yuta,” says Michael, face impassive as he watches him fall. “Only God can.”

 

===

 

Sicheng catches him, and Yuta curls into his chest, tears staining his shirt. It is too much for him, the past day, that he doesn't even mind the way Sicheng knows he would fall and gathers him into his arms, laying him down under a tree. They are in an orchard, and the scent of apples sting at Yuta's nostrils as he sniffles.

 

“You did not fall through any fault of your own, Yuta,” Yuta feels Sicheng speaking, the vibrations lulling him into a sense of numb despair. “Heaven hated me and they hated that you loved me.”

 

 _Why_ , Yuta thinks as he asks aloud.

 

“Is your God all good or is he all powerful?” asks Sicheng.

 

“He was supposed to be both,” Yuta replies, squeezing his eyes shut. “Humans can't understand how someone can be both. Neither could angels. But from the moment we were created they would tell us it is possible of God. The seraphim would fill up the heavens with his song-- _Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory_. All that is good began with him.”

 

“He cannot be,” Sicheng interjected, his voice staccato against Yuta's temple that echoes the pounding in his head. “Yuta, God lies.”

 

“Does he? Do you?” He tilts his head up to glance at him.

 

“As much as any others do,” Sicheng confesses with an exhale.

 

They stay silent, Yuta shuddering out the aftereffects of his weeping every now and then, a quiet sort of damaged like shards of glass scattered in moonlight-- still, ragged, and shining despite its brokenness.

 

“But try as hard as I might to blame God, I should share equal blame with him for your fall.”

 

There is a note of regret in Sicheng's voice that makes Yuta pull out of his grasp. “Sicheng,” he says, reaching up to cup his face. “I fell for you. Both in spirit and in heart. And if Heaven hates me for loving you, and hates you, then I'm glad to have fallen.”

 

“And yet it makes me sadder than ever to know that,” Sicheng says, reaching up to hold onto his wrist. His eyes study Yuta's. The earnestness within them makes his face crumple, and he pulls away, shaking his head.

 

“Sicheng?” Yuta trails off, reaching for his shoulders, feeling the muscle tense and relax under his fingers. “Sicheng, I'm yours. If we're together, I don't care where it is.”

 

The other man doesn't look at him, just exhales a deep and slow breath, almost like the sound of a hissing snake. Around them, a breeze makes the branches rustle in the wind, the scent washing over them. “I wish I'd never come to tempt you out of the spite of God. You belong up in heaven, and if it weren't for me, you would still have been there with your wings and innocence intact.”

 

A tear flows down Sicheng's cheek. Yuta kisses it away.

 

“If only I never defied and denied God,” Sicheng rambles, taking Yuta's hand and kissing it, lips brushing across each knuckle and then up the inside of his wrist, up his arm. “Maybe we could've been happier then. Maybe then I could have loved you like an angel loves an angel, like Michael loves Gabriel, instead of fucking and filling you in a church, where God is blindest.”

 

Yuta kisses him then, because it's the only thing he can offer anymore. No holy words or divinity can save either of them.

 

Sicheng tilts his head up into the kiss, tender, the lines of his neck contracting and expanding with his heartbeat and the way Yuta's lips slide over his, and grasps at his waist, pulls him closer again, fingers tangling over hair and legs tangling over each other. “I wanted you too much,” he says between the gasps of breath as they shed their clothes.

 

“You have me,” Yuta whispers back as Sicheng falls back against the grass, pulls at Yuta's hand. “And you're all I have now. Please don't leave me, Sicheng.”

 

Sicheng doesn't say anything back, merely pushes himself up on his elbows, guiding Yuta inside him and throwing his arms around his neck, thrusting his hips forward as Yuta begins to move in him. They fuck slowly, languidly, with none of the frenzied heat as in their first time, and Yuta comes apart in Sicheng with the sweetness of their lips pressed together and the bitterness of knowing this is the only heaven left for him-- Sicheng's touch, Sicheng's body, Sicheng himself.

 

It is a paradise lost to him forever despite the illusory flashes behind his eyes when he comes. It makes him want to cry despite Sicheng's arms caging him in, and in the fading bliss that comes after sex, he murmurs against Sicheng's sternum, barely words that he himself can hear, “What have I done?”

 

“A crime,” answers back Sicheng, equally softly.

 

Yuta inhales. A question sits on the tip of his tongue, so heavy it falls out despite how hard he tries to keep it inside him. “Who are you, then?”

 

The artifice of Eden around them lies silent.

 

“Satan.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Gabriel](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0d/6b/52/0d6b52c20feb946ad4d5a8c03a3c5434.gif)   
>  [Michael](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/58/77/46/587746b04c233d485f3a44fc7183f7d0.gif)   
>  [Raphael](https://66.media.tumblr.com/0b34500e68f87a8cf8375f44528db142/tumblr_p75dhh3cZT1u1ycj8o2_500.gif)
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you to Poonam, Zoe, Ellie, Vy, and Lily for encouraging me throughout my intermittent writing of this that underwent several evolutions before reverting back to this form. Thank you also to Ry for betaing this fic, love you guys!!!  
>    
> [ twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/xyunqis)  
> [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/xyunqis)  
> 


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